Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Governor Dayton: The Public Doesn't Want A Wolf Hunt - TAKE ACTION NOW TO STOP THE HUNT

TAKE ACTION NOW TO STOP THE HUNT

Go to THIS LINK and sign your name to the following letter to Governor Mark Dayton and sound out your voice to stop Wolf Hunting and Trapping next year. The wolves are depending upon your support!

And pass it on to your friends. People, this is our chance to stop the insanity!
Thank you!

Governor Mark Dayton,
The 2012 MN Wolf Hunting and Trapping season killed 413 wolves and
another 298 wolves were killed by farmers and property owners because
they were perceived to be a threat to livestock and domestic animals. A
total of 711 wolves, one in every four, were knowingly killed last year.
This doesn’t account for additional wolf deaths due to disease,
poaching, and car collisions.
The MN DNR did not obtain any baseline population data before the
start of the hunt and forever denied the public and decision makers this
crucial information, without which it may take years before we know the
real impacts of the hunt. This hunt was rushed by the DNR to cater to
their primary clients, hunters and trappers, even though the public is
against a wolf hunt. 80% of DNR survey respondents made it clear they do not want a wolf hunting and trapping season in Minnesota.
As apex predators, wolves keep our deer and other wildlife
populations in balance so our north woods sustain a diverse ecology that
attracts tourism to our state, including hunting and fishing. Tourism
from wildlife viewing is a sustainable $531 million industry in
Minnesota supporting nearly 13,000 jobs. A recreational wolf hunt
threatens our north woods ecosystem, state tourism revenue, and the long
term survival of our wolf population.
It’s time for common sense to prevail. The public doesn’t want a wolf
hunt. We already have programs in place to manage problem wolves. We
ask you to make good on a broken promise to the public by supporting the
reinstatement of the five-year waiting period on wolf hunting and
trapping following delisting. This waiting period was in Minnesota law
for ten years until it was stripped away behind locked doors without any
public input in the summer special session of 2011. We need this
five-year waiting period to assess the increased number of wolves
allowed to be killed by state law, to assess public attitudes, and to
assess the health of our wolf population. Please tell the legislature
and your DNR Commissioner that we need to put the brakes on the wolf
hunt, it’s not in the interest of our state.
[my comment]
Sincerely,
[first_name] [last_name]
[email]
[phone]
[zip code]Help Us Collect More Minnesota Signatures We need your help to collect more
signatures. Please download the documents listed below to collect
signatures of support from neighbors, friends, family, and co-workers.
Please return to this page to submit the signatures online or email signature pages to respond@howlingforwolves.org.Click here to download our printable letter (PDF)Click here to download our sheet to collect signatures (PDF)

One of Minnesota’s Vital Natural Resources

The gray wolf or canis lupus, also called the timber wolf is
considered a pure wolf as distinct from wolf-coyote hybrids or canis
latrans. Gray wolves once roamed the United States from coast to coast
and from Canada to Mexico. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
wolves were intensively trapped and shot and eradicated from all of the
lower 48 states except in Minnesota where a sustainable but once
threatened population still exists today. The last actual count of
wolves in MN was in the winter of 2007-2008, which occurred at a time
when the moose population was twice what it is today. The estimated wolf
population in 2008 was 2921 and the average pack size was 4.9 wolves
per pack. Listen to a gray wolf howling.

Gray wolves in Minnesota are considered part of the contiguous group
the Great Lakes wolf population, ranging in Minnesota, Michigan and
Wisconsin. Minnesota's wolves were the only sustainable population at
the time that they were listed as threatened and put on the ESA in 1974
with the goal of enhancing the Minnesota population. Michigan and
Wisconsin wolves were considered endangered and the Minnesota wolves are
credited with providing the genetic diversity that brought back those
populations, though at much lower numbers. The problem with actually
surveying for numbers of gray wolves is that surveying is in part
dependent on using snow tracking for wolf paw prints. The separation of
these two species is difficult if not impossible.

Wolves are known to keep wilderness habitat healthy for the forest
ecosystem. The wolf is the keystone species because they cull out
weakened prey species and maintain the deer and elk populations that
forage on the understory vegetation of the forest. Along rivers and
streams, ungulates such as deer and elk do not graze as long due to the
presence of wolves. This "ecology of fear" improves the health of the water systems in the forests and meadows.

Studies in Yellowstone National Park have demonstrated just how
valuable a healthy wolf population is to having young trees to grow to
middle age. Wolves were absent from Yellowstone National Park since 1927
when the last wolf was killed by bounty hunting. After wolves were
re-introduced in 1995 (with much public controversy) the Yellowstone
river was brought back to a healthier state. The river bank has less
erosion and supports more wildlife. More vegetation supports more beaver
that have now
damned up more streams and parts of the river. This results in cooler
river temperatures and healthier fish. The increased vegetation also
provides for a healthier bird and small animal habitat.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone